


Elizabeth the Great

by thebodyeclectic



Category: DCU - Comicverse, Smallville
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Gen, News Media
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-28
Updated: 2012-09-28
Packaged: 2017-11-15 05:39:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/523760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebodyeclectic/pseuds/thebodyeclectic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Vanity Fair Interview/Fluff Piece). Set in some Elseworld where Lex Luthor was born Elizabeth.  Some vague application of Smallville backstory and a convoluted rendering of Kon's existence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Elizabeth the Great

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by joyfulgirl41's girl!Lex AU [Falling is Like This](http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=joyfulgirl41&keyword=Falling+Is+Like+This+Links&filter=all).
> 
> Clearing out my hard drive.
> 
> Written in 2006.

  
****

ELIZABETH the GREAT

by Cat Grant

 

LizCorp’s anteroom is a study in tasteful elegance and tightly-reined power. There’s a Miles van der Rohe coffee table and couch set, plush Persian carpeting, a perfectly austere flower arranged in the Ikebana style and Ezra Stoller’s famous photograph of the TWA terminal at JFK. 

The room reflects the majesty of the corporate world. It is done in shades of steel and chrome and black. It is no-nonsense and symbolises nothing less than what it is. Just like the woman I’m to meet and interview today.

Liz Luthor has a reputation for being cutthroat and ruthless. Rising quickly through the coorate world to establish herself as its literal figurehead—a feat in that she has overcome both the bias towards her sex, and being the daughter of corporate magnate Lionel Luthor—she is a testament to all powerful women in history before her. Some would even argue that she has become the _most_ powerful woman in history; the others pale in comparison.

Meeting Elizabeth Luthor is an objective unto itself, a fact made even more clear by the lack of reading material in the waiting room. One is not to be bored, should not be occupied with thoughts other than that of seeing Ms. Luthor. 

When I bring up the lack of periodicals to Luthor’s personal assistant, a lovely woman in her early fifties by the name of Charity, she gives me a quick smile and explains that “Miss Luthor hardly ever needs the room. It’s rare that she lets an appointment run late.”

That would be Liz Luthor in a nutshell.

 

A young man steps out of Luthor’s office. He is wearing a lab coat and has the bluest eyes I have ever seen. Charity smiles at me and gestures that I should enter where he has left.

Before I slip into the office itself, I hear the young man chat idly with Charity about “Liz’s bull-headedness.” That bodes well. I take a deep breath before I enter.

Elizabeth Luthor is every bit as beautiful and glamorous as her publicity photos and television interviews make her out to be. The long red hair parted to one side, the creamy-pale skin, the perfectly applied make-up and the supermodel’s body clad in Roland Mouret.

Against the backdrop of the late afternoon Kansas sun, she almost seems warm and inviting of confidences. Seems almost approachable.

Then she moves forward to shake my hand and I can see that all of that was merely illusion.

Her grip is cool and dry and firm. She holds on for no longer than what is deemed perfunctory.

She offers me a drink. I decline. She pours herself a finger of Scotch and directs me to the small sitting area across her enormous desk. Its décor is no more personal than the one I had just vacated mere minutes ago.

If one finds Luthor’s demeanor cold and aloof, no one can blame her for it. As previously mentioned, she is practically the only woman in the male-dominated corporate world. Not only that, she has defeated and surpassed many of these men.

Liz is the only child of Lionel Luthor. But instead of following daddy’s rules and taking a figurative Vice Presidential position at the now defunct LuthorCorp, she decided to make her own way. The beginnings of LizCorp can be traced back to a failing LuthorCorp fertilizer plant in Smallville, Kansas.

“I like to think of it as a test,” Luthor says idly when I bring up the topic. “My father’s way of seeing if I could make something of myself.”

Luthor’s wild days as Metropolis’s premier party girl have been highly documented. It’s difficult to reconcile that image with the self-possessed woman sitting before me today.

Her notoriously estranged relationship with her father is far more extant than her hedonistic past.

“It deteriorated even further when my mother died. She was the glue that held us together.” Luthor’s gaze is steady and she speaks to me, not at me. “My father always wanted a son, that was no secret. Everything I did after her passing was always in direct response to it.”

That the reason be her father’s disappointment in her sex, her mother’s death or even both, she leaves up to me to interpret.

Luthor has always been wildly rebellious, living her life against the grain, so to speak. As a child, everyone had expected her to grow up into a society girl then become a society wife. It is no secret that in her late teens she’d been wooed by many a prince and rich scion, all of whom she has turned down.

Luthor has always had an objective, throughout her club kid phase she’d been attending MetU, double-majoring in business and biochemistry. She’d graduated from both with honors.

She’s been described as tough an unapologetic. And both are true. She has no regrets about her actions in the past and has nothing to say about them other than “they happened.”

Luthor is now intensely private about her personal life. Her outrageous past behind her, she has settled into herself. Therefore I have to ask why she agreed to this interview.

She gives me an amused smile before answering with a wry, “It's good PR. LizCorp's biotech division will be launching something in the next few weeks.”

Just as I press her for more details, something crashes through her office doors. ‘It’ would be her son Kon who has somehow managed to get what I assume to be a skateboard stuck between the marble-floored anteroom and the fully-carpeted interior.

He falls to the floor, knocks over one of the receiving chairs and crashes to a stop beside his mother’s desk.

“I see you’ve eschewed safety for fashion yet again,” Luthor’s voice is amused and has slipped into polished English tones.

Lillian Luthor was the daughter of a British Ambassador to the US and Luthor may be subliminally trying to emulate her own mother. Luthor also attended the very prestigious Havenhurst Girls Academy, just a stone’s throw away from Excelsior which produced the likes of Oliver Queen, Dr. Thomas Elliot and Bruce Wayne. The latter is notoriously good friends with Luthor and heavily rumoured to be Kon’s father.

The tabloid conjecture can hardly be faulted. Kon shares Wayne’s dark hair, strong build and all-American good looks. But wearing an oversized t-shirt, blue jeans and the latest sneakers, he could be any handsome seventeen-year old. Hardly the heir to a multi-billion dollar empire.

He is warm and verbose and after our introduction proceeds to regale both his mother and I with tales from his day at school: his punctuality (“I was late, but it was a sub, so I smiled at her and it was all cool”), English class (“when am I ever gonna need to know the Canterbury Tales out of school?”), Math class (“wow, the girl in front of me was hot”), lunch (“I swear to god, mom, it moved”) and Chemistry class (“piece o’cake”).

Luthor is attentive, laughing in all the right places, sneaking in a dry comment or two. Say what you will about Elizabeth Luthor, but you can’t say she doesn't appear to be a good mother.

Kon has charm in droves. Yet another quality he shares with Bruce Wayne. He speaks with his hands, making wild and encompassing gestures. He is easily distracted, as most teenagers are, and possesses the uncanny ability to find food where there is none in sight.

He and his mother argue about the merits of fusion cuisine vs traditional fare, which hot dog stand makes the best chili dogs and where they should spend his Christmas vacation.

The change in Luthor’s demeanor is apparent and uncharacteristic. She is smiling throughout their exchange. Her blue eyes, which she has given her son, sparkle with amusement.

It is so very easy to see how effortless it would be to really fall under her thrall.

 

*

 

My second meeting with Liz Luthor takes place during the Met Costume Gala. Clad in vintage YSL, she is radiant. Her date for the night is Bruce Wayne, and seeing them together evokes a feeling of being in the presence of royalty. Transmuting those old world notions and customs, it would be safe to assume that Luthor and Wayne are the approximation of this country’s noble ruling class.

Wayne is all smiles when we are introduced and his allure is a potent thing. He compliments my dress, my hair, my skin… 

From any other man it would seem obnoxious and sleazy but Wayne ineffably manages to pass it off as charm. He is dazzle and shine and draws the crowd to him by the sheer enormity of his personality.

Luthor is his foil.

She is serene and polite and says no more than is necessary. She responds to greetings with a mere tilt of her head and a half-smile on her lips. Wayne draws people into conversation, claps them on the back, banters and teases.

They remain firmly arm-in-arm throughout the night.

During a lull in the festivities, I manage to lead them to one of the hall’s many balconies. Wayne insisted on accompanying us and is more than game when I ask him to speak of his childhood acquaintance with Luthor.

“I was the shy one. She was the bossy, precocious one.” He smiles as he snags glasses of champagne for all three of us. “What a world of difference a few decades make.” He smirks then appends, “Except for the bossy part.”

Luthor merely raises an eyebrow. “You used to be such a polite little boy. I wonder where he’s gone.”

Her voice has taken on the same accent she uses when speaking to her son.

Most of the conversation passes in the same manner. They speak of the notorious pranks Liz pulled while in boarding school, Wayne’s infamous drunken conversation with the Pope and their shared love for Wayne’s manservant and the long-suffering eyerolls they’d received as a reaction to their antics.

Eventually, they both confess to sneaking into the Old Vic when she was fourteen and falling madly in love with a transvestite dancer.

“He was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen,” Luthor acknowledges with a smile. 

“I’d never seen anyone dance with so much power and grace,” Wayne adds.

They’d continued their amorous surveillance until the stage manager spotted them and physically threw them out of the theatre.

“He threw Liz out,” Wayne clarifies. “I bigger than he was, but I had to go with her. I couldn’t have abandoned her, now, could I?”

Luthor steals his glass and polishes it off contemptuously. “Very chivalrous of you. As I recall, you hailed me a taxi and went off to bed the dancer.”

 

*

 

It is about a week later before I am contacted by LizCorp’s PR department. They would like me to be part of the press they’ve invited to the unveiling of the company’s latest (and as rumour has it, greatest) project.

The conference is set for the following day and it’s short notice but this is LizCorp we’re talking about. I accept and drop all my previous commitments.

The unveiling is held in LizCorp’s auditorium. Every major television news station is present, as is a scant number of privileged reporters. I spot Pulitzer Prize-winning duo Lois Lane and Clark Kent make their way to their seats at the front of the stage.

If anything, their presence is a guarantee that whatever happens will be destined to become interesting.

Lane’s inimical regard for Luthor is well-known by all Metropolitans. Countless exposés on LizCorp’s less than pristine business practices (some true, others not so much) bear Lane and Kent’s byline.

It’ll be quite a sight to behold should one of their legendary catfights take place.

It’s a few minutes before Liz Luthor emerges from one of the hall’s side doors and takes the stage; the blue-eyed scientist from before walks in time with her.

Luthor, as usual, looks magnificent. She is clad in an Armani powersuit and even without her Manolos, would tower over her companion.

The entire room takes this as their cue to settle down. Luthor thanks us for joining her and goes straight to the point.

LizCorp has managed to develop an intravenously administered drug that regenerates cells.

The room bursts into a flurry of raised hands and questions. Luthor holds up a hand and calls for silence. She introduces the man beside her as Dr. Jonathan Crane, psychiatrist, psychopharmacologist and head scientist of the Cell Regeneration Therapy project. She asks that questions be brought up after she and Dr. Crane explain the mechanics of their discovery.

Most of the details go over my head but what is apparent is that Metropolis General’s Emergency Rescue Unit picked up a patient (who wished to remain nameless) they claimed was DOA. The patient had been mugged and shot. Only, upon arrival at the hospital, the stranger had miraculously revived with no apparent bullet wounds.

Dr. Crane claims to have come by the information from one of his colleagues who worked at the hospital. Crane relayed the incident to Luthor and they met with the patient. The patient was receptive to their ideas and, they assure the gathered press, privy to the entire process.

“He had to sign some very strict confidentiality contracts, of course,” Luthor deadpans.

Two seats down, I hear Lois Lane mutter imprecations about Luthor’s ethics and the scare tactics she probably used to coerce the patient into agreeing to become ‘her own little twisted science project.’

As expected, when the Q&A portion of the presentation arrives, Lane is the first to jump in with her question.

It’s no surprise when she begins to fire volley after volley at Luthor, trying to ferret out anything that might so much as hint at the project being inhumane and unethical. Lane doesn’t allow anyone else to get a word in. She is single-minded and ferocious and it is apparent that these very same qualities are the reasons behind her success. Her partner, Clark Kent, is less antagonistic but just as direct.

Luthor seems to take this as her due and parries every pointed barb and veiled question with crafty remarks and rejoinders.

Not all of the reporters are as wary of Luthor as Lane and Kent. Coleman from the Tribune asks his question with a smile on his face. Luthor has something of a rapport with Lim from the Times. The Herald treats her as some sort of media darling. She lets out a laugh when the reporter from the Post lets loose a joke about overpopulation in Florida.

Luthor and Dr. Crane take turns answering questions until the reporters are satisfied. Luthor does not take undue credit when offhandedly complimented about the groundbreaking achievement nor does she shy away when it is entitled.

After, when both Luthor and Crane have left the hall, I am approached by a LizCorp employee and directed to a private set of elevators. He escorts me to Luthor’s private parking space and I take this as an opportunity to quiz him about how Luthor is as a boss.

He is polite, saying she is a fair employer but remains resolutely silent when I press him for more details.

The photos that are to accompany this article were scheduled to be taken this afternoon, and though today will be something for the history books, Luthor keeps her schedule.

She has put on a coat and is speaking quietly to Dr. Crane when I approach her Town Car. Her bodyguard, a beautiful blonde warrior woman by the name of Mercy, opens the passenger door for me. Luthor nods at me politely and finishes up her conversation with Crane. They exchange a friendly kiss and squeeze hands.

Luthor slides in next to me and Mercy shuts the door. Luthor asks me about my thoughts on the press conference as we drive out of the parking lot.

Liz Luthor is a curious woman. This quality has served her well as both businesswoman and scientist. This thirst for knowledge is what has kept her at the top of her game and is what compels her to forge new territories where others could only dream.

She is looking out the car window, red hair caught by the sun’s rays, eyes reflecting Metropolis. The city she’s put on the map. The city she’s helped build.

The city that is indubitably hers.

She looks like a queen. An empress for a new era.

Powerful.

Then her phone rings. It’s her son, Kon. 

“Are you in detention again? …What do you mean, ‘how much does an entire classroom cost’?”


End file.
